Every 12-step novice is familiar with the term “surrender” and its significance for finding recovery. However, as often as the word is used in recovery groups, the word itself does not appear in any of the Twelve Steps. I’ve spent decades in recovery and attended thousands of meetings, yet for a long time, it never occurred to me that “surrender” is not specifically detailed in any of the Steps. 

Under the spiritual direction of a kind and humble priest, I have been called to examine many aspects of my spiritual life. This included a challenge to explore the basis of my desire to “surrender” all things to God. At first, I was reticent and voiced resistance. I was sure that my sobriety depended on surrendering, so I went immediately to the Steps to “back up” my stance, only to find the word itself was nowhere to be found. My defenses immediately went up, and I created a clever analogy that temporarily eased my discomfort. I postulated that just as the word “Trinity” does not appear in Scripture but is understood to be a divine reality on the basis of Tradition, so, too, was “surrender” held by the tradition of recovery, even if not specifically stated in the Steps.

However, with reflection and prayer, I began to see that the term “surrender” better captured my experience of succumbing to addiction and delivering one’s self over to a life of debauchery and selfishness (in my case, an addiction to sex and alcohol). I had “surrendered” to every temptation and urge stemming from these addictions. Although I cannot recall the precise moment, there came a time when I relinquished my free will and acquiesced to every demand of my addictions. 

I had crossed a line and was acting without volition. That was truly my moment of surrender. I handed my will and life over to a “Lower Power” and was unable to heed my conscience that had been atrophied (and eventually deadened) by neglect. I was incapable of making any moral decisions when it came to drinking and sexual behavior. I was humiliated and defeated, and I believed I was forever lost and irredeemable. Waving the white flag and “giving up” was something I had lived, but this type of surrender was obviously not to God.

In the parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus captures every addict’s story of fleeing the Father in pursuit of the disordered, distorted pursuit of self-medication and pleasure. Every addict has played out that storyline, many having done it more than once. But unlike the surrender to addiction that was characterized by humiliation and defeat, the return to sanity—and to the Father—was a gradual dance of approach-avoidance on my part and a gentle wooing on His. It was a process of stops and starts, rather than one specific moment or event of surrendering fully and completely to God’s will.

He was always ready and waiting for me to return, even before I had “hit bottom,” because He is not bound by the constraints of time and the sequential events of my life. He always was, is, and will be my Father. Yet, “surrendering” to God does not seem an apt description of the dance between a wayward soul and a loving Father anxious to embrace His son. Surrender implies a hopeless resignation and submission to an enemy who is poised to deliver the final, fatal blow. However, unlike the beast of addiction, God does not demand things of me, nor revel in my humiliation and defeat like the dancing beast who celebrated my fall from grace.

The Father awaits my return with anticipation and a readiness to meet me as I journey back. Unlike the beast who dominates, controls, and covets, the Father entices with a gentle voice that is devoid of anger and admonishment. God has no desire to manipulate and force me into a debased surrender. God’s voice is one of warmth that leads toward hope. The surrender I had offered to addiction holds nothing for me and delivers me to a pit of despair. But my return to the Father leads to restoration and an abundance of life that is celebrated, complete with gifts bestowed upon an undeserving child.

I do not really understand why He would do this for me. I suspect my difficulty lies in understanding God’s profoundly sacrificial and loving act. It appears Jesus is willing to suffer the humiliation of my deeds. He chose to experience death (“defeat”), thus assuming all the consequences of my sins and addictions on my behalf. His humiliation and “defeat” preclude my need to persist in the enslavement to addiction and its ever-increasing costs. There is no humiliation nor defeat for me—only a call to humility and a triumph merited by the cross. In other words, I no longer have to surrender to addiction because Jesus has already done so on the cross. The surrender I thought I needed to embrace to rejoin the Father in redemption and recovery might be more aptly described as yielding to the wooing of a lover who is always quietly beckoning me.

I suppose my misunderstanding of surrender is from a basic mischaracterization of the situation: I had conflated the separate concepts of  “surrender” and “powerlessness.” I am powerless over my addictive proclivities but an immediate and perfect surrender to God is not required to begin receiving the graces necessary to move forward in recovery and faith. If I wait for my complete readiness to “surrender” my will fully to God’s, I will be forever standing still. But as long as I begin yielding to His will that will be enough for Him to draw me ever into His divine life.

Read part two of this series where Mark L. details how we can begin yielding to God’s will as we move from addiction and sin to recovery and healing.

Mark L. is a recovering alcoholic and sex and love addict. He lives in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and started a CIR General Recovery meeting at St. Joseph Parish in Downingtown, Pennsylvania. He has a particular devotion to St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, martyr and opioid addict.